CHARITY GOLF FOR FRED DE SARAM TROPHY

PRELUDE TO ‘BATTLE OF THE BLUES’ CRICKET MATCH

Over 120 golfers consisting of old boys from Royal and S. Thomas’ will vie for the Fred de Saram Challenge Trophy on 25 February at the Royal Colombo Golf Club course.

This golfing duel which was first held in 1970 but held intermittently before being held annually in the recent past, is a forerunner to the ‘Battle of the Blues’ Royal-Thomian cricket match to be played on 7, 8 and 9 March.

The golf tournament organised by the Royal-Thomian Golfers Guild (RTGG) will be to raise funds for charity in collaboration with Moreton Cricket from Brisbane, Australia.

Following on the success of last year’s donation to the College of Anaesthetists Sri Lanka, the two organisations hope to raise funds to help Suwa Arana palliative care home for children in Maharagama.

Chairman, Charity Committee RTGG Naveen Samarasekera expressed his gratitude to Greg Bartlett, Tour Coordinator of Moreton Cricket who have already raised A$ 4,500 and the initiator Baba Sourjah, a former Royalist.

Last year a sum of Rs 1.6 million was raised while this year’s target is to collect Rs. 4.5 million, organising officials revealed at a Press conference held at RCGC.

In keeping with the motto of RTGG ‘Together we Flourish’ the rival captains Hemasiri Subasinghe of Royal and Kamal Weerapperuma of S. Thomas’ said their main objective is raise funds for charity.

One of the highlights will be the participation of 91-year-old Sohli Captain as the oldest player in the tournament representing Old Thomians while his son is Rusi is expected to turn out for Old Royalists.

The tournament will be conducted in a four-ball format with team captains nominating the pairs who would be matched to ensure healthy, exciting and equitable competition. This is achieved by matching average aggregate of handicaps of each pair closely as possible, to that of the opposing team.

The winners will be declared on the aggregated points of all flights after completion of 30 matches. Each team will consist of players of varying age groups with the minimum being 21 years.

Some old boys who live overseas are expected to take part.